Shakhtar Donetsk: a club in exile – video | Football | The Guardian Guardian Football passport Shakhtar Donetsk: a club in exile – video Shakhtar Donetsk, Ukraine’s most successful football club in recent times, have to play all of their home games 600 miles away in Lviv because of the conflict in the region. Ukraine has been in turmoil since February 2014, with pro-Russian forces claiming large areas of the east of the country. Here, the club’s players and its CEO discuss how the conflict has affected them . We also hear from champion boxer-turned-politician Vitali Klitschko and Kiev’s mayor Shakhtar Donetsk: Ukraine's greatest soccer club now plays in exile Shakhtar Donetsk: Ukraine's greatest soccer club now plays in exile 896 Share What's This? Shakhtar Donetsk's Frederico Rodrigues Santos walks to the locker room after warm-ups before the start of the club's match against Olimpik. Image: Christopher Miller, Mashable By Christopher Miller 2015-04-10 22:38:26 UTC LVIV, Ukraine — As the ball strikes the back of the goal, the crowd erupts.

But not with its usual flare. There are no fireworks, no orange smoke. No anthems are sung. See also: Ukraine's nameless dead 'would take forever to count' In this 35,000-seat stadium on March 14, the mere 2,000 people who are here to watch the Donetsk derby between Shakhtar and Olimpik casually rise and applaud. A group of a couple hundred young students let out screams, but no synchronized chants. Shakhtar's hard-core fans, known as "Ultras," the rowdy, shirtless and sometimes mask-clad crew of young men who typically travel everywhere with the team are noticeably absent. That's because this match is taking place not on the team's home field in war-torn eastern Donetsk, but 700 miles west in Lviv, near the border with Poland. Shakhtar Donetsk fans wave Ukrainian flags during the final soccer match of Ukraine's Cup between Shakhtar and Dynamo Kiev at Vorskla Stadium in Poltava, Ukraine, Thursday, May 15, 2014.

Image: AP Photo/Andrey Lukatsky No aspect of life has gone untouched by the war in Ukraine's east — not even soccer. The violence there has displaced more than a million people from the region, and hundreds of thousands from Donetsk itself. Some have fled east to Russia, while a majority relocated to the government-controlled territory further west. Soccer teams from Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol have also been dislodged and relocated due to intense fighting there. "Almost half of all teams [in Ukraine] don't have home arenas, in other words they don't have home games," says Vitaliy Krutyakov, a journalist for Ukraine's Football 1 and 2 channels. Shakhtar is among them. Today, refugees in their own right, they're living and practicing in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and traveling to and from Lviv to play home matches. Shakhtar Donetsk, arguably Ukraine's greatest football club of present day — some would argue of all-time — hasn't played on its home field in Donetsk since May 2 last year. The team has won Ukraine's Premier League Championship the past five years, and competes in European competitions, including the UEFA Champions League.

In 2009, the squad won the UEFA Cup, becoming only the second Ukrainian team ever to do so. Donesk's starting 11 pose for a team photo before the second leg of the Champions League Round of Sixteen soccer match FC Bayern Munich vs FC Shakhtar Donetsk in Munich, Germany, March 11, 2015. Image: Andreas Gebert/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images Shakhtar's budget is the biggest, and its stadium, the $425 million Donbass Arena, is perhaps the best in the country, thanks to its billionaire owner and the country's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov . The team's legendary coach, 69-year-old Romanian Mircea Lucescu, is a serial winner; its ultras are devout worshipers. Those things, as well as the club's recent success, has attracted the attention of international players as far away as Brazil who outnumber local talent on its roster 2-1.

On the heels of its fifth-consecutive league title a year ago, Shakhtar, whose name translates from Ukrainian as "Miners" — after the men who worked the fields upon which the team was founded in 1936 — was poised to become one of best clubs in Europe and a challenger for the EUFA Champions League Cup. Shaktar captain Darijo Srna reacts after goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov, on his knees, concedes a goal to Bayern Munich's forward Robert Lewandowski during the match in Munich, Germany. Image: Photo by Mitchell Gunn/ESPA-Images, Cal Sport Media via AP Images And then war erupted in Ukraine's east, and Donetsk transformed from a bustling million-person metropolis of swanky cafes and glistening high-rises alongside old Soviet blocs to the embattled epicenter of fighting between Kiev's government forces and Russia-backed separatists. Instead of soccer matches, Donbass Arena now hosts humanitarian aid workers who dole out much-needed food to hungry civilians caught in the crossfire of the conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people since it began last April.

Shockwaves from a rocket strike in the city blasted out several of the sleek stadium's windows in October of last year, barely missing a lucky young girl walking beneath them. Beyonce performed at its opening back in 2009. Shakhtar Donetsk's future is now as uncertain as the outcome of the conflict itself. Donbas Arena stadium, one of the venues which hosted the Euro 2012 Soccer tournament, after it was damaged by a shockwave caused by a blast during shelling in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Oct. 20, 2014. Image: AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky "If you look at the history of football, I don't think you'll find this kind of situation where a team played one year or two years outside of their home and still continued to participate in the [Champions League]," Sergei Palkin, Shakhtar's CEO, told Mashable inside the marbled Opera Hotel in Kiev, where the team and its administrative staff have taken up temporary residence. Akhmetov, the club's owner, also owns the hotel. "When you don't have a home, it's very hard," he says. "You can do it one or two months.

But when it's for more than a year, it's very hard to survive in this situation." The 35,000-seat Lviv Arena, the temporary home to Shakhtar Donetsk, is mostly empty minutes before the start of the club's match with Olimpik, another Dontesk club, March 15, 2015. Image: Christopher Miller, Mashable Lviv is strikingly different from Russian-speaking Donetsk in every way. A rich, centuries-long history that saw it change hands between the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland and Ukraine left a remarkable mix of architectural styles. In Donetsk, it's mostly Stalin-era blocs all around, with a splattering of unimaginative high-rise glass business centers. The city is distinctively pro-Western, and Ukrainian — not Russian — is the predominant language. Almost every family here has sent someone to the front lines on the conflict in the east. Hundreds of them — maybe thousands — never returned from the battlefields. Fundraising for the Ukrainian army in western #Lviv . Assortment of handicrafts sold to raise $ for handmade uniforms.

pic.twitter.com/tBV8qTEh4u — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 15, 2015 The sense of patriotism in Lviv is evident everywhere — from underground speakeasies whose call-and-response password system is "Glory to Ukraine!" "Glory to heroes!" to the handicrafts sold at market by volunteers to raise money for the war effort. Blue and yellow national flags wave from nearly every building, often times alongside the red and black — "blood and soil" — flag of the more radical nationalists. And so it came as no surprise when some locals met Shakhtar Donetsk's arrival last fall in Lviv with some hostility, hanging signs from its new home field, the 35,000-seat Lviv Arena built for Euro 2012, that read: "Get out of Lviv!" Things seem to have mellowed since. Taras, a Lviv Karpaty ultra, & his 1969 VW. He's cool with Shakhtar Donetsk playing in Lviv.

"All ultras are united." pic.twitter.com/0tXojhdXHp — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 15, 2015 "Politicians always pit people against each other in Ukraine, saying east and west are absolutely different, saying in the east they don't like people from the west and vice versa, in the west they don't like Russian speaking people from the east ... Fans all around Ukraine, in spite of what city they're from support each other and Ukraine, and are truly patriots of our land," says Taras Pavliv, a leader of the Karpaty Ultras — the super fans of Lviv's soccer club. Palkin, Shakhtar's CEO, agrees that Lviv has been supportive. But he says filling the stadium has been a challenge. "Our fans are like the 12th player on the pitch," Palkin says. Ruslan, a leader of the Shakhtar Donetsk Ultras who, like the team, fled Donetsk after facing persecution from the local pro-Russian crowd, says it has become increasingly difficult to organize the fans, who, after leaving their homes, spilled across the country.

"We are the team from Donetsk, which lives in Kyiv and plays it's home matches in Lviv. "It's a paradox," he says. "And it's uncomfortable." Despite the poor attendance at the March 14 match, Shakhtar pulled off an easy victory in the Donetsk derby, defeating Olimpik 6-0. But it wasn't much of a challenge. Olimpik only this year was bumped up to Ukraine's Premier League to fill a void after Russia annexed Crimea last March, taking the peninsula's top teams with it. Shakhtar Donetsk owner Rinat Akhmetov, top, and his team players celebrate winning the Ukrainian Premier League after a soccer match against Donetsk's Metalurg at Donbass Arena, May 7, 2011. Image: AP Photo/Sergey Vaganov "I never thought we'd have to leave our home. Nobody thought the war would force us out," says 26-year-old Shakhtar goalkeeper Anton Kanibolotskiy, sitting on a plush gold sofa inside a Kiev hotel two days after the match in Lviv some 430 miles away from the eastern city of Donetsk, where he is unable to return.

This may be Kiev, but reminders of what's happening in Donetsk are omnipresent. News of the death and destruction there are splashed across television programs. Billboard displays calls for men to join the ranks of the army and national guard to fight the separatist insurgency in the east. The thought that Shakhtar might not be able to go back never crossed Kanibolotskiy's mind last May, after the club went on vacation at the end of the season. But as the conflict reached its peak last summer and rockets rained death down upon Donetsk, he accepted the fact that he and his team "might never go home." "We all believe and hope that peace will come and we'll be able to return to Donetsk, to our stadium, our fans," he says. But even with a fragile cease-fire agreed by the warring sides, it is unlikely they will go back soon. The truce doesn't begin to address the underlying issues between Ukraine and Russia and the separatists it backs. A win for anyone is still a long way off. Additional reporting by Natalie Gryvnyak Coach: Mircea Lucescu History and achievements FC Shakhtar is a professional football club from the city of Donetsk, Ukraine.

Founded on 24 May 1936 the team is one of the oldest Ukrainian clubs. The first football teams in Donetsk area were created by the English workers or engineers that came to the Soviet Union to build factories. In 1911 Yuzovka Sports Association was established, the team that became the base of Shakhtar, yet the side changed several names until 1936 when the current one appeared. Shakhtar reached the top tier of the Soviet championship only in 1950 and it was the following season that the side surprisingly finished 3rd on the table. Despite enjoying moderate success in the tournament, the Moles became tough Cup fighters and clinched the trophy in 1961 and 1962. In the 1970s the team finished second and third in the Soviet championship but despite collecting 1980 and 1983 USSR Cups and 1983 USSR Super Cup the club did not manage to taste the honors of the league. When the independent Ukrainian League was organized after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shakhtar steadily became the main opponent for Dynamo Kiev.

In the 2000s the Donbas club won 7 Ukrainian league titles, 8 Ukrainian Cups and 4 Super Cups. In 2009 the club claimed the UEFA Cup and later during the 2010/2011 season achieved the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The home stadium of the team is Donbass Arena that was opened on 29 August 2009. The arena has a capacity of 50,149. The nicknames of the club are the Miners and the Moles. Found a mistake? Highlight it with mouse and press CTRL + Enter. Thank you! Shakhtar Donetsk - World Football Index World Football Index Alex Teixeira is one of a long line of Brazilian footballers who’ve plied their trade in Donetsk; a city in southeast Ukraine which is home to one of the country’s football heavyweights – Shakhtar. Youth Football: Vasco & Brazil Born in Duque de Caxias, a city neighbouring Rio de Janeiro, Alex Teixeira joined Rio based club Vasco da Gama as a youth in 1999, aged ten.

The right-footed attacking midfielder progressed through the youth ranks at the club, picking up international youth caps along the way. He won several trophies with his country at U-15 and U-17 level, including the South American U-17 Championship in 2007, where he wore the number eleven shirt and contributed two goals during the victorious campaign. He also scored two goals in the subsequent 2007 U-17 World Cup, but Brazil were eliminated from the tournament in the first knockout round. It was around this time that Teixeira began to attract the attention of football scouts around the world, and in 2008 at the age of eighteen, he was listed as one of FIFA’s global revelations alongside names such as Giovani dos Santos, Alexandre Pato, and Sergio Aguero. He’d previously attracted a transfer offer from Manchester United in 2006 , which Vasco had turned down, and in 2008 they received an offer from another English club, Chelsea , who wanted to buy 50% of the player’s rights, but again Vasco turned the offer down.

Between 2008 and 2009 he made ninety-five appearances for Vasco in all competitions, scoring thirteen goals, and in his last year at the club he helped them secure promotion back to Brazil’s top division as they won the Série B title. At the end of 2009 he represented his country at youth level again; this time at the U-20 World Cup in Egypt. He scored three goals for a Brazil side which included Bayern Munich’s new signing Douglas Costa (also signed from Shakhtar), as the team made it to the final only to be defeated by Ghana. Interest from Europe re-emerged shortly after this tournament, and Alex Teixeira ended up joining Shakhtar Donetsk in March 2010 for around €6m. Shakhtar’s School for Brazilians Shakhtar were getting a reputation for developing Brazilian footballers. Many of these players were eventually sold on, but not before they’d helped Shakhtar advance as a club in its own right.

They had won the UEFA Cup in 2009 with goals from Brazilian attackers Luiz Adriano and Jadson, and the likes of Fernandinho and Willian were following in the footsteps of the club’s pioneering Brazilians, Brandão, and Elano. Despite a few appearances at the end of the 2009/10 season, it was in the 2010/11 season when football fans began to see glimpses of the player Shakhtar had signed. He made appearances in domestic competitions, as well as being part of the side which made it to the Champions League quarter-finals where they were knocked out by Barcelona. Alex Teixeira appeared from the bench in both legs against Guardiola’s Spanish dream-team – an invaluable learning experience for any young player. Shakhtar have won the league in every season Alex has been at the club, except for the most recent 2014/15 season when the title returned to Dynamo Kiev. Despite his club’s failure to lift their sixth title in a row, it was one of Alex Teixeira’s most productive seasons from an individual point of view as he finished top of the league’s goal-scoring charts with seventeen.

In all competitions his goal tally reached twenty-two. It was his most productive season at the club so far, but he had reached double figures in the goals column twice before – in the 2011/12 season when he notched up ten goals in all competitions, and in 2012/13 when he scored sixteen. Future Brazil International? As the 2015/16 season begins, Alex Teixeira is picking up where he left off. He already has five goals from six games in the league, and one goal from his side’s Champions League qualifying victory against Fenerbahçe. They defeated the Turkish side 3-0 at home in the second leg, after the first leg in İstanbul finished 0-0, and have since drawn Austrian side Rapid Wien in the play-off round. He’s named as the club’s vice captain for the current season, and at 25-years-old he’s currently moving into his peak years as a footballer. In this form it’s surely only a matter of time before he earns his first senior cap with a call-up to Dunga’s struggling Brazil side.

His goals from midfield could be vital for a team who can’t seem to find a reliable striker, and playing alongside the likes of Neymar, Coutinho, and Oscar; the supply to him would be plentiful. Shakhtar Donetsk welcome Champions League distraction - BBC Sport BBC Sport Shakhtar Donetsk welcome Champions League distraction By Rafael Saakov and Stephen Fottrell BBC World Service Read more about sharing. Shakhtar Donetsk players applaud fans after the 0-0 Champions League tie at Athletic Bilbao on 17 September Shakhtar Donetsk play their first home Champions League game of the season on Tuesday, but the match against Porto will take place not at the club's home ground in eastern Ukraine, but more than 600 miles to the west, in Lviv. The nine-time Ukrainian champions are homeless because of the conflict in the east of the country between the national army and pro-Russian separatists. The team is currently based in the capital, Kiev, where they play home Ukrainian Premier League games and travel to Lviv for European games. Shakhtar's captain, Croatia international Darijo Srna, says that he and his team-mates try to focus on matters on the pitch, although he admits that is not easy.

"Of course it's hard to play away from your home," Srna told the BBC. Shakhtar's Donbass Arena suffered damage from two explosions on 23 August "It is currently impossible to play in Donetsk. We are worried for the city, for the stadium, for all people who live there. We just have to play for our fans to show our character." Shakhtar's home ground, the Donbass Arena - which hosted a Euro 2012 semi-final - suffered bomb damage in August. Six Shakhtar players had already refused to return to the city ahead of the new season because of concerns over the escalating conflict. According to Srna, despite the complexity of the current situation, the club's aims remain the same - reaching the knockout stages of the Champions League and winning a sixth Ukrainian league title in a row. But the defending champions, who are more used to playing in a 52,000-capacity stadium, have to adjust to playing league games at Kiev's Bannikov Stadium, which has a capacity of 1,678. Average attendance for league matches has so far been about 1,000.

Donetsk-based Shakhtar fan Alexander Zhavoronkov says that matches in the capital are mainly attended by supporters from the Kiev region and those who have fled the conflict in the east. "Fans from Donetsk don't go to the matches in Kiev," he said. "The main reason is safety. Trains don't operate at the moment, so you can only use buses. But you have to pass various checkpoints. Nobody wants to risk it. Fans of rival clubs - including Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk - have united to protest during the current conflict "Of course everyone is upset. We are already missing the Donbass Arena and everything that was part of our lives. We are waiting for peace to come to our land when the team will be able to return to the stadium." Shakhtar's general director Sergei Palkin told the BBC that the club's main focus is now on survival. "The main complexity for us is that we don't have a home for the time being," Palkin said. "We live on wheels. Naturally, it is difficult mentally and psychologically, but we have no other options. We do what we can. Atmosphere in the team is normal, the spirit is fine.

"Our main goal is to keep the team and to keep the club. It takes decades to create a club, and you can lose it just in two months." Shakhtar won the last five league titles in Ukraine and, despite the distractions off the pitch, currently lie second in the table, one point behind Dnipro. Shakhtar's Champions League group opponents FC Porto Athletic Bilbao BATE Borisov Shakhtar's owner Rinat Akhmetov, ranked among the wealthiest men in Ukraine, said that the damage to the $100m state-of-the-art Donbass stadium is nothing compared to the lives lost in the conflict. "If I was asked whether I'm ready to see our stadium smashed into small pieces and lose my business, but instead see peace in Donbass, I would agree without any doubts," Ahmetov said. "The most important thing is to stop the war and save the lives of children, women, older people and all residents of Donbass." Shakhtar's training base in Donetsk was also destroyed by two missile strikes on 30 August and the club's head office was seized by armed men, forcing them to relocate staff to Kiev, along with the team.

Some fans have jokingly referred to the club as FC Shakhtar Lviv or FC Shakhtar Kiev and the club's social-networking platforms are full of fans' concerns over the future of the club. Promisingly for the side, however, a near-capacity 32,000 tickets have been sold for the game against Porto in Lviv, in what will be the first Champions League match to be played in western Ukraine. The $100m Donbass Arena currently lies empty as Shakhtar play home games in Kiev and Lviv As for the players, the six who refused to return following a pre-season friendly in France - Argentine Facundo Ferreyra, who is now on loan at Newcastle United, and Brazilians Douglas Costa, Dentinho, Alex Teixeira, Ismaily and Fred - all returned a week later. They were not punished, but Shakhtar's record signing, Brazilian international winger Bernard, who took part in the country's World Cup campaign, was fined "quite a large sum of money" after returning late following his participation at Brazil 2014, according to Palkin. Srna, meanwhile, says that he remains committed to leading the team.

"I have never had thoughts about leaving the club. I want to finish my career in Shakhtar, so I'm with Shakhtar, both in good times and in bad," he said. The security situation in the south-east of Ukraine, despite a truce agreed on 5 September, remains dangerous and there have been repeated violations since then. The head of Shakhtar's fan club from the nearby town of Snizhne, Vladimir Zolotarev, says he regularly hears the thunder of exploding shells. He is a former coal miner, like many of the club's traditional fan-base. Zolotarev bought 40 season tickets for members of his fan club, spending about $550 (£338), before the conflict affected the team's season so dramatically. He is now trying to get his money back from the club. While Shakhtar's fans count their losses, the club is also facing financial and logistical challenges, brought about by the conflict in eastern Ukraine. A successful Champions League campaign might help. Share this page History | The Club | FC Shakhtar Donetsk official website May 2006. Shakhtar win second consecutive title 2008.

FC Shakhtar are the 2008 Ukrainian Champions Cup Winners 2009. FC Shakhtar – the 2009 UEFA Cup Winners Mircea Lucescu, the Head Coach, Rinat Akhmetov, the President of the Club, and Darijo Srna, the Captain of the Miners holding the UEFA Cup 2011. FC Shakhtar – the Ukrainian Premier League Champions and Cup Winners Year 2012. Shakhtar are the Ukrainian League winners for the seventh time. The year 2006 was particularly memorable to Donetsk dwellers. Shakhtar finished the Premier League season being on par with Dynamo on points. Therefore, under the tournament regulations a ‘gold decider’ was held in Kryvyi Rih. The extra-time winner netted by Julius Aghahowa brought the Pitmen an impressive 2-1 win. This was the third championship gold earned by Shakhtar. And in June 2006, construction of FC Shakhtar’s new stadium kicked off in Leninskoho Komsomolu recreation & leisure park in the vicinity of RSC Olympiyskyi.

After the season 2006-07 which was not quite successful in terms of the national competitions (just silver medals of the Ukrainian League and the country’s Cup runners-up) the impressive season 2007–08 followed. In 2008 FC Shakhtar won the home treble: the Country’s League, the Cup and the Super Cup. Fernandinho added another record to the club’s collection – he scored the 1000th goal in the Ukrainian League match played against FC Kharkiv. Nevertheless, the first half of the season 2008–09 cannot be called a fairy tale. In the UKrainian League FC Shakhtar was second to Dynamo Kyiv, its major competitor; the club also missed out on the play-off stage of the UEFA Champions League (in spite of perfect chances to become the group winner instead of the club’s actual third position and its being entitled to claim the UEFA Cup). Though, as it turned out later, the year 2009 became the landmark after the history-making win of the Miners in the European arena.

After FC Shakhtar cleared the French Olimpique from the last UEFA Cup tournament (it was rearranged into the UEFA Europa League the following year), the Miners from Donetsk faced their archrival, Dynamo Kyiv, in the semifinal. The 1:1 away tie and the 2:1 home win opened the doors for the Miners to the European Cup final. FC Shakhtar had to measure its strength against Werder’s. The Miners won deservedly with the 2:1 score. The two goals were scored by Luiz Adriano and Jadson (extra time). For the first time in its history FC Shakhtar Donetsk won the European club tournament! It happened in the spring. And in the autumn… The Grand Opening of the team’s new home ground located in Leninskogo Komsomola recreation and leisure park took place on 29 August 2009. The stadium received the name of the Donbass Arena. The construction and landscaping cost about USD 400m. The state-of-the-art arena can seat 51,504 spectators being ranked among the elite football stadia that makes it possible for the venue to host international matches.

The first official match at the Donbass Arena was played on 27 September 2009. It was the Ukrainian League match between FC Shakhtar Donetsk and FC Obolon’ Kyiv which ended in the whitewashing win of the Miners – 4:0. In the season 2009/10 FC Shakhtar bid for the championship against FC Dynamo. Everything became clear on the next-to-last matchday, when the Pitmen beat Dynamo 1-0 on the Donbass Arena pitch. The Champions title has been their fourth one over the past 6 years. The men from Donetsk managed to enter the European cup spring, though they failed to get an aggregate win against Fulham London in the UEFA Europa League round of 32. The Donetsk-based team opened the next season by earning a dramatic 7-1 win over Tavriya in the Super Cup of Ukraine match. The FC Shakhtar Museum – the largest sports museum in Ukraine - opened at the Donbass Arena on 14 July 2010. For the first time ever Shakhtar gained automatic entry to the group stage of the Champions League.

The Pitmen’s victorious start in the season 2010/11 extended to both the national and the European arenas. Despite the fact that not everything ran smoothly, the team managed to prove their top caliber. Shakhtar finished the season’s first half at the top of the Premier League table, being 12 points clear of their nearest rivals Dynamo. FC Shakhtar also won the UEFA Champions League group H, after defeating the big-name Arsenal FC (London) and ultimately reaching the knockout phase of the most prestigious European club tournament for the first time. According to the draw results the Pitmen will make their first last-16 appearance against Italian AS Roma. Following the two legs’ results, FC Shakhtar beat the opposition and won 6-2 on aggregate. For the quarterfinals our team was drawn against Spanish Barcelona, the toughest of the last eight sides. The Pitmen failed to outplay them then. In the domestic Premier League the Pitmen won the championship title two Matchdays ahead of the final. The Ukrainian Cup final was an unquestioned highlight of the season. In the Cup decider Shakhtar outperformed Dynamo 2-0 in a spectacular and convincing way.

This victory enabled FC Shakhtar to secure the third ‘golden double’ in their history: both the Premier League and the domestic Cup titles. A Grand Show dedicated to celebrating the 75th Anniversary of FC Shakhtar Donetsk took place at the Donbass Arena on 14 May 2011. The season 2011/12 turned out to be challenging for the Pitmen. It saw Mircea Lucescu’s charges make a confident start to the league, facing intense competition on multiple fronts. In the UEFA Champions League Shakhtar were drawn into the same group as Portuguese Porto, Russian Zenit and Cypriot APOEL, but the Orange-Blacks did not make it to European competitions’ spring stages. Thus, the team fully focused on the domestic battles. In 2012 – both throughout the league season’s second half and in the Ukrainian Cup deciders – Shakhtar have shown their mettle, coupled with the will to win and real character. Donetsk-based side extended their winning streak to twelve in a row in both tournaments, proving that they have been the country’s strongest side in recent years.

After defeating Olexandriya on the closing matchday, FC Shakhtar Donetsk won the league title with the active support from their fans. The forward Yevhen Seleznyov was voted Man of the Match. Just a few days before that, the Pitmen outplayed Metalurh Donetsk and lifted the Cup of Ukraine. Following the season results, Mircea Lucescu cemented his status as the most decorated coach in independent Ukraine, having six domestic league titles and four cups, alongside three UEFA Super Cups and a UEFA Cup, under his belt. The 2012-13 season was truly record-breaking for Shakhtar. Having started it by raising the Super Cup of Ukraine (10/07/12 Metalurh Donetsk 0-2 Shakhtar Donetsk), the team set several all-Ukrainian and club records by the end of the season. Among them, winning all matches in the first half of the season (first time in the history of the Ukrainian Premier League!), the longest winning streak (24 games) and the longest goal-scoring one (34 games).

Throughout the season, Shakhtar topped the table and defended the title four rounds before the end of the league season by a wide margin of 13 points. Moreover, the team won the Ukrainian Cup title for the ninth time and by doing so, they repeated the national record. A brilliant result produced by Shakhtar midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan stands out among the players’ individual achievements: by grabbing six braces and one hat trick, he eventually set the new national record and became the best scorer of the 2012-13 Ukrainian League season with 25 goals. In the Champions League, despite a very strong competition against the major opponents Juventus and Chelsea, Shakhtar managed to reach the Last 16 to take on Borussia Dortmund. The home victory over Chelsea (2-1 on October 23, 2012) and the battling draw at Borussia on 13 February 2013 (2-2) are particularly memorable for Shakhtar fans.

In the season 2013-14, the Pitmen’s head coach Mircea Lucescu was tasked with virtually re-creating a strong team - Willian, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Fernandinho, Razvan Rat left the team. Shakhtar went into the winter break as the league leaders but in the UEFA Champions League group, where the Pitmen faced Real Sociedad (Spain), Bayer 04 (Germany) and Manchester United (England), they claimed only third place. In the domestic league, Shakhtar managed to finish above Dnipro and Metalist in the heated battle, whereas in the UEFA Europa League they was unable to reach the next phase. The political crisis in Ukraine did not allow to start the championship as scheduled. Some of the matches took place without spectators. Shakhtar’s last home league match was held in Cherkasy, not at Donbass Arena. However, before the last round of the competition, Shakhtar became the Ukrainian champions for the fifth time in a row and for the ninth time in its history. The 2014-2015 season has proved to be the most difficult one in the Ukrainian history of Shakhtar.

The Pitmen have not played a single match at home during this campaign. Due to the armed conflict in the Donbas, the team relocated to Kyiv and played most of the ‘home’ matches at the Arena Lviv in Lviv. Despite the lack of a home ground, training base and support of the Donetsk crowd, the team managed to advance from the Champions League group, in which Shakhtar faced Athletic (Spain), Porto (Portugal) and BATE (Belarus). In the last-16 of the Champions League, Shakhtar were stopped by Bayern Munich. In the domestic competitions the Pitmen have won the Ukrainian Super Cup, reached the final of the Ukrainian Cup and took second place in the league, winning the right to participate in the Champions League qualifying round. In the course of a tough season, Shakhtar have pleased the fans with achievements and records. In the tie with BATE (a 7-0 win in Belarus and a 5-0 victory in Lviv), there was registered the biggest win in the Champions League. Luiz Adriano has scored the first penta-trick in the history of Shakhtar.

Alex Teixeira has netted 17 goals in the league, becoming the top scorer of the 2014-2015 Premier League. Shakhtar started the 2015/16 season with a 2-0 Ukrainian Super Cup victory over Dynamo. The Pitmen finished the league’s autumn part in the top spot, winning 14 matches out of 16. Shakhtar also beat Dynamo 3-0, being the biggest away win against the Kyiv team. After passing two qualifying rounds, the team advanced to the Champions League group stage, where they competed with PSG, Real Madrid and Malmo. Based on the Champions League group stage performance, the Pitmen continued playing in the Europa League. Two major events happened during the winter break. For the first time ever, Shakhtar held their training camp in the United States. In February, the league’s top scorer Alex Teixeira (22 goals) moved to Jiangsu Suning FC for EUR 50 m, being a record transfer fee for Ukraine and China.

Meanwhile, Shakhtar played successfully in the Europa League: they made it past Schalke 04, Anderlecht and Braga, losing to Sevilla in the semi-finals. In the domestic league, the Pitmen enjoyed their third whitewash win at Dynamo that season (3-0), still being tied in a few meetings and finishing second. Darijo Srna made 492 appearances, beating Mikhail Sokolovskiy’s record for the number of apps for the team. Shakhtar marked their 80th anniversary year as the Ukrainian Cup Winners after defeating Zorya 2-0 in the cup final. The end of the season saw the conclusion of the era of Mircea Lucescu who had coached the Pitmen for 12 years, winning 22 trophies and having 573 games under his belt. ANDY MITTEN: TALKING FOOTBALL - Shakhtar Donetsk, the club without a home - Yahoo Sport More Sports ANDY MITTEN: TALKING FOOTBALL - Shakhtar Donetsk, the club without a home Shakhtar Donetsk have a UEFA five-star, 52,000 seat stadium but they are a club with a home.

Due to the Ukrainian conflict, Wednesday's 'home' Champions League match will be 600 miles away in a stadium where the fans back the other team. By Andy Mitten 30 September 2015 15:40    Shakhtar Donetsk are a club with a home away from home. We learn about their story having been displaced 600 miles away from the Donbass Arena, and how it has affected them. View gallery . Sunday marked the sixth anniversary of the Donbass Arena,the 52,000 seater UEFA five-star venue which staged England ’s games against France and Ukraine in Euro 2012. The impressive, glass-fronted stadium was built to stage the home games of Shakhtar Donetsk, yet when Ukraine’s most successful modern club host Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League on Wednesday night, they’ll do so 600 miles west of the city which takes their name. War has pushed Shakhtar into an indefinite exile since July 2014, shortly after six of their foreign players refused to return to Donetsk for fear of their safety.

The club president and oligarch Rinat Akhmetov told them that they “had nothing to fear” and claimed the players were agitating for a move, but one, Douglas Costa retorted on his Instagram page: “We want to stay at the club, but we must have risk-free working conditions.” Shakhtar knew they couldn’t play games in a city at war, with the front line close to their stadium, airport and modern training ground. The club had long looked west for players and their squad has included a significant number of Brazilians. Now they’d look west to survive, for predominantly Russian speaking Donetsk is in separatist hands, with the club’s administration shifted to a hotel in Kiev, where the players now live and train. They fly into Lviv for matches, the venue chosen after the players responded favourably to the atmosphere in the 34,000 Arena Lviv during the 2014 Ukrainian Super Cup against Dynamo Kiev, themselves long perceived as the standard bearer for Ukrainian football. View gallery .

The Lviv arena was buil tfor Euro 2012 but the intended host team, FC Karpaty Lviv left after only one season, reluctant to pay the rent for a stadium that was too big for their needs. Shakhtar filled the void and a month after they reluctantly moved, the Donbass was hit by artillery shelling as the Ukrainian armed forces clashed with pro-Russian separatists for control of Ukraine’s fifth biggest city. The Donbass was hit by shelling again in October 2014, when shockwaves shattered a large pain of glass, which fell and narrowly missed a young girl. “We are warning residents not to approach the stadium as it might be unsafe,” the Arena’s manager Vadyn Gunkotold the BBC. Though a truce has been signed, Shakhtar are still playing in Lviv, with the badly damaged Donbass now used as a depot for humanitarian aid for those suffering in the conflict, with club president Akhmetov helping the relief efforts. In going west, Shakhtar left behind their fan base, their community, their people. But it wasn’t safe to stay. “In one day we lost everything,” the club’s CEO Sergei Palkin told the Guardian.

“We lost one of the best stadiums in the world, we lost our training camp, but the most important thing was that we lost our fans. It’s difficult to stay without fans, to play without fans and to live without fans.” View gallery . Fernandinho of Shakhtar Donetsk lifts the 2009 UEFA Cup Trophy following his team's victory extra time 2-1 victory … Despite ticket prices starting at £1.40 (and £4 for the visits of PSG and Real Madrid ) crowds in Lviv were often just a couple of thousand and even then many of the locals preferred the visiting teams to win. Most people in western Ukraine didn’t expect to see top-class football again any time soon after Euro 2012, but the Champions League brought it back via Shakhtar. Yet while the locals filled the stadium in Lviv, many wanted visiting foreign sides like Bayern Munich to win.

From playing in one of the most febrile, passionate arenas in world football in Donetsk, where the ultras unfurled a giant flag of a miner – the club’s nickname ‘the pitmen’ denotes their history of being founded by miners - when they played Manchester United in 2013, they now play where many don’t even want them. Not everyone in Lviv supports Shakhtar’s opponents, but PSG can expect an easier ride on Wednesday night against a team for whom the constant flights and travelling took their toll. The team who’d won the league eight times in the last decade and for five successive seasons up to 2014, didn’t win the title in 2015. They did better in Europe, qualifying from their group stage last season, when striker Luiz Adriano equalled both Lionel Messi ’s record of five goals in a Champions League match and Cristiano Ronaldo ’s record of scoring nine in the group stage. Star players continued to be sold, Adriano left for AC Milan in 2015 and Douglas Costa leftfor Bayern Munich, but Shakhtar’s business model had long been a successful and based around selling star Brazilians like Manchester City’s Fernandinho and Chelsea’s Willian.

View gallery . Until the war, Shakhtar had been a success. With their Ukrainian-Brazilian mix of players, they became only the second Ukrainian club to win a European trophy, the 2009 UEFA Cup. They were Champions League regulars and ahead of the game against United in 2013, I spoke to the former Arsenal striker Eduardo who played for Shakhtar. “We have big crowds at home and a beautiful stadium: 30,000 watch most of our league games, 50,000 see the Champions League,” explained the Rio de Janiero-born Croatian international. “The league stops in December when the temperature can drop to minus 10 or minus 15. We played Porto (in 2011) and it was minus eight. It gets even colder in January and February, that’s why we don’t play.” It didn’t seem a natural fit for a Brazilian. “It’s true that the culture is very different but we have a lot of Brazilian players here, not just at Shakhtar but at other clubs in Ukraine,” he said. “We socialise together, especially in the summer when the weather is hot. We enjoy BBQ stogether.

In the winter, we stay inside and watch TV.” It wasn’t only Brazilians, of whom nine remain in the Shakhtar squad playing under 70-year-old Romanian coach Mircea Lucescu, in charge since 2004. While Lucescu loved emerging Brazilian forwards, a large number of Spaniards play in Ukraine, where they’ll be better paid than in Spain. Jordi Cruyff was one of the first to move, in 2006 when he joined Metalurh Donetsk, the city’s second team until the war saw them bankrupted in July. “I like strange countries,” Cruyff explained. “I was going to play in Jordan, but went instead to Ukraine, where the football isn’t bad and I was treated well there. I enjoyed two years before returning home to Barcelona to be with my family.” As with other displaced teams from eastern Ukraine from Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol, Shakhtar want to go home themselves, but with the east of of the country still under the control of pro-Russian forces, now is not the time.

Many of the residents in the city of two million (though more than a million people have been displaced from the region) have bigger priorities than football, yet sport can sometimes transcend boundaries and be a refuge when everything else is bleak. Sports & Recreation

Question: Which country is the home of football club Shakhtar Donetsk?
Answer: UKRAINE